“The journey was terrible—for reasons which you know. When William lifted me into the carriage he had stolen from the doctor, I was utterly done. He dragged me wherever he wanted, towards another station and from there, since we had our tickets, to Nice, where I got my luggage. I was in a fever, almost delirious. I acted without knowing what I was doing. He took advantage of it next day to make me accompany him to an estate where he had to recover, during the absence of the owner, some securities of which he had been robbed. I went there, as I should have gone anywhere. I had lost the power to think. I obeyed him passively. It was at that villa that I was attacked and carried off by Jodot——” “And saved, for the second time, by me—whom you rewarded a second time by flying as soon as you were rescued. But no matter. Jodot also demanded revelations, didn’t he?” “Yes.” “And then?” “Then I went back to the hotel to which William had begged me to follow him.” “But by this time you knew the kind of man he was!” protested Ralph. “How? One sees clearly enough when one definitely looks; but for two days I had been living in a kind of madness that had been aggravated by Jodot’s attack. I followed William therefore without even asking him the object of the journey. I was alone, ashamed of my cowardice, and harassed by the presence of this man who was becoming more and more a stranger to me. What part did I play at Monte Carlo? It is not very clear to me. William had intrusted some letters to me, which I was to hand over to him in the corridor of the hotel that he might himself hand them over to a gentleman. What letters? What gentleman? Why was Marescal there? How did you snatch me from him? All that is quite obscure. However, my instincts had awakened; I felt a growing hostility to William. I detested him. And I left Monte Carlo resolved to break the agreement which united us and come and hide myself here. He pursued me as far as Toulouse and when I told him my decision to leave him, and he was convinced that nothing would make me return to him, coldly and harshly, with a fury that made him look hideous, he said: ‘Well and good, let us separate. It’s really all the same to me. But I make one condition.’” “A condition?” “‘Yes. One day I heard your step-father speaking of a secret which had been bequeathed to you. Tell me that secret and you are free.’” “Then I understood everything. All his protestations and devotion were so many lies. His sole object was to get from me some day, either by winning my love, or by threats, the revelations which I had refused my step-father and which Jodot had tried to tear from me.” She was silent. Ralph studied her closely. He had the strongest impression that she had told the whole truth. He said gravely: “Would you like to know exactly the character of this brute?” She shook her head. “Is it really necessary?” she asked.